宋高僧傳 26.14

26.14

釋玄覽，姓褚氏，其先河南人也。食菜于錢塘，因是家焉。覽誕膺明德，生而懸解，深達實相，以崇善本。自初念至于捨家，師承慧昶。昶師德無不滿，眾用皆足，年高行尊，久為師範。及見覽無一息之間違仁，告門人曰：「無上之道，清淨為本。有能一念用其心，吾未見學不足者。江表無真僧久矣，或以此子為法鼓耶？俾遐邇聞之。」其預為達匠之所甄異也如此。其本邑有故華嚴寺，覽以包桑之地，近於玄禮師之先塋，屬隋室不競，法宇弛頹，名將壑遷，跡亦時廢。屬于唐初，募信人重建。文明歲，有勅許還舊額，廣輪制度，兼移基址。背山臨水，往返形勝。覽初以具戒依天竺，次以僧錄住一閑居，後以耆德統華嚴。三寺次第同致于道，道無不在，因教有遷也。覽甞以憫物慈濟為己任，遂議寺前平湖之通川為放生池。時太守袁從禮因茲勸勉，深入慈門，以禁六里。司馬楊敏言感夢，又廣至十里。是以揵鬐掉尾，噞喁浮沈，不虞其害，得遂生性焉。覽又以經像為最，則殿前畫四像，慈氏為首，鑄金銅像三百五十座，彌陀為首；寫經二千餘軸，金字《涅槃經》為首。如是功德，以順現報——故王考宗追贈和州刺史；右散騎常侍封舒國公無量，則覽之元昆也。量修學之日，臨平湖龍見，無不往觀，舒公晏然不離書案，氣度如此。明皇初年，舒公侍講，帝嘉尚之。歸覲太夫人，年已期頤，昆季皆以華皓，晨昏之地，說法而已。覽以開元二十二年示疾，終于臨平所造寺，春秋八十四。僧明了、大覺、普賢、神滿、懷遜，皆參預法流，奉法器藏于細礪洞之下基。工部侍郎徐安貞撰碑頌德焉。又閩中愛同寺釋守如，多事勸誘，越上之民歸若廛聚焉。崇樹精廬，以為濟眾，急在利他。開元十年於寺營浴室，患地勢陡高，清泉在下，桔槹無用，汲引步遙，終以為勞。思慮不迨，無由改作。忽一宵下流頓涸，距造浴室所二十餘步，清泉迸出，時謂神功冥作，移此泉耳。七閩之民罔不歸信，終于溫室之偏房矣。

Śramaṇa Xuanlan, whose secular surname was Chu, had ancestors from Henan. His family received sustenance in Qiantang and consequently settled there. Xuanlan was endowed with illustrious virtue, possessed spontaneous understanding from birth, and profoundly penetrated the true mark of phenomena so as to venerate the root of goodness. From his first thought of leaving home until he departed householder life, he took Huichang as his master. Master Chang's virtue was completely fulfilled and his abilities were fully sufficient; advanced in years and honored in conduct, he had long served as a model for others. When he saw that Xuanlan did not depart from benevolence for even a single breath, he told his disciples: 'The unsurpassed path takes purity as its basis. If someone can apply his mind for a single thought-moment, I have yet to see his learning fall short. It has been long since Jiangbiao had a true monk; might this boy become the Dharma drum, making it heard far and wide?' Such was the extraordinary discernment granted him in advance by an accomplished master. In his home county there was the old Huayan Temple; because this plot of mulberry trees was close to the ancestral grave of Master Xuanli, and under the decline of the Sui house the Dharma sanctuary had deteriorated, its name on the verge of vanishing into valleys and its traces constantly falling into disuse. At the beginning of the Tang, Xuanlan solicited faithful people to rebuild it. In the Wenming year, an imperial edict permitted the restoration of its former plaque, while the measurements and scale were expanded and its site was relocated. Backed by mountains and facing water, its terrain was splendid in both directions. Xuanlan first relied on Tianzhu Temple upon receiving the full precepts, then resided in Yixianju as a saṅgha rectifier, and later presided over Huayan Temple as a senior of eminent virtue. The three temples successively led to the same Path; the Path is present everywhere, changing in accordance with teaching. Xuanlan always took compassionate salvation of living beings as his personal duty, and thus proposed turning the open waters of the flat lake in front of the temple into a life-release pond. At that time, Prefect Yuan Congli was encouraged by this, deeply entered the gate of compassion, and prohibited fishing for six li. Sima Yang Minyan was inspired by a dream and extended it to ten li. As a result, fishes with raising fins and swishing tails, breathing at the surface and sinking, feared no harm and were able to fulfill their living nature. Xuanlan also considered scriptures and images paramount: before the hall he had four images painted, with Maitreya as the chief; he had three hundred and fifty bronze images cast, with Amitābha as the chief; and he had over two thousand scrolls of scriptures transcribed, with the gold-lettered Nirvāṇa Sūtra as the chief. For such merit, he received corresponding visible retribution in the present—his deceased father Zong was posthumously promoted to Prefect of Hezhou; his elder brother Wuliang was Right Policy Advisor and Duke of the State of Shu. During the days when Wuliang was pursuing his studies, a dragon appeared in Linping Lake, and everyone went out to look, but the Duke of Shu remained serene without leaving his desk; such was his caliber. In the early years of Emperor Xuanzong, the Duke of Shu served as an attendant lecturer, and the Emperor praised him. When he returned to visit his mother, who was already a centenarian, all the brothers had gray hair; in their morning and evening gatherings, they spoke of nothing but the Dharma. In the twenty-second year of Kaiyuan, Xuanlan manifested illness and passed away at the temple he built in Linping, at the age of eighty-four. The monks Mingliao, Dajue, Puxian, Shenman, and Huaixun, all participating in the lineage of the Dharma, bore his ritual implements and entombed them beneath the Xili Cave. Xu Anzhen, Vice Minister of the Ministry of Works, composed a stele inscription praising his virtue. Also, Śramaṇa Shouru of Aitong Temple in Minzhong frequently exhorted and guided people, and the folk of Yue gathered to him like crowds in a marketplace. He erected quiet abodes to aid the multitude, urgently prioritizing the benefit of others. In the tenth year of Kaiyuan, he constructed a bathhouse at the temple; distressed that the terrain was steep and high while the clear spring was far below, so that shadoofs were useless and fetching water from a distance was an enduring hardship, his thoughts could find no way to alter the design. Suddenly one night, the lower stream ran dry, and more than twenty paces from where the bathhouse was being built, a clear spring gushed forth; people at the time said spiritual power had operated invisibly to move this spring. None of the people of the Seven Min failed to embrace the faith. He passed away in a side room of the bathhouse.